The phone rang at an ungodly hour; it must have been two or three in the morning. My wife picked it up. “Yes?” she said irritably. “Huh? Luciano who?” She pushed the receiver towards me with a quizzical look on her face. “It’s for you,” she said. It was Pavarotti, with a theatrical tremor to his voice. “Listen, man, I realize it’s an awkward time of the day, but you simply must come. I’ve managed to get everybody who is anybody; they will all be here. It’s the last chance to get some kind of a consensus. Get dressed and come here as fast as you can.” Click. An excitable bunch, these Italians. Still, if everybody was going to be there, I had to go. Over the heated objections of my wife I grabbed yesterday’s clothes and got dressed. “You can’t go there in a corduroy jacket, Bruno,” she said. “Be reasonable. You can’t afford to look like a hayseed in that crowd. Nobody will listen to you.” Ah, women!
The car raced along the alpine road at a crackling pace. It is a rare machine, a dark blue 1939 Graham Supercharger 2-door Custom Coupe. It can still outperform most Japanese machinery, not to speak of the modern Detroit iron. The valves of the Continental Six engine clattered their urgent staccato, the supercharger whined, the tires whistled round the serpentine turns of the climb and my mood was improving by the minute. Very soon, Castello Malatesta was looming dramatically above the road.
Luciano himself greeted me at the.... (click 'Read More...')